1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to electronic merchandising systems, which provide merchants the ability to sell products over distributed public networks such as the Internet. More particularly, this invention relates to a system for providing customizable and flexible merchandising promotions over the Internet.
2. Description of the Related Art
The demand for "on-line" interactive shopping has given rise to electronic merchandising systems which make use of the Internet and the World Wide Web ("Web"). These merchandising systems include merchant server sites and client sites. Typically, a consumer or shopper uses a personal computer as a client site. When placing an order the consumer uses a standard Web browser, such as Microsoft's Internet Explorer.RTM. browser, running on the client site to retrieve hypertext documents from the merchant server site. The hypertext documents typically contain product offerings and order forms. The consumer enters ordering information, including the items he wishes to order, the form of payment, and the shipping information, onto the order form.
To fully exploit the potential of "on-line" shopping, merchants need effective promotion tools to optimize their sales. One significant drawback of existing electronic merchandising systems is that they do not provide a flexible mechanism for offering promotions, including the sophisticated discounting of prices and the granting of awards. Typically, existing electronic merchandising systems are limited to employing electronic coupon-based promotion schemes. An electronic coupon, for example, may entitle any coupon holder to a flat percentage discount on a purchased product. Electronic coupons, however, are restrictive because they do not provide flexible pricing schemes such as varying discounts for bulk purchases. In addition, electronic coupons do not allow merchants to tailor discounts for particular customers or for groups of items. Furthermore, electronic coupons do not permit merchants to offer multiple or overlapping promotions.
Thus, merchants using current electronic merchandising systems cannot not adequately optimize sale promotions to increase profits and to efficiently service consumers.